Who’s using Google+ and why? Who should get on now and why? Who ought to wait?

It’s not like we all need yet another social network site to add to our online plate, right?

That was my first question when I began to hear the buzz surrounding Google+, the new social network platform that’s reportedly aiming to kill Facebook.

If you check out my article on Simple Answers to 6 Basic Social Media Questions, you’ll note I suggest newbies concentrate on five basic places when they are getting their feet wet in a teeming sea of social media sites. [Start here: Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, and blogging.]

Google is such a huge influence on our online behavior that you have to wonder if the omnipresent search engine could be wrong. Will we soon “wave” goodbye to the latest Google “buzz”?

I read a lot of social media pundits who are devoting time and blog space to their experiments with Google+ and so I have to wonder if it’s time for me to follow suit . . . or wait.

Who’s using Google+ and why? Who should get on now and why? Who ought to wait?

The question obviously struck a chord. In less than two days, I have received 16 answers. Here are some of them:

Depends on your business industry and marketing model. Does every business need a Facebook page? Does a HVAC systems integrator need a Twitter account? Customer demand will lead businesses to the technology. If there are no customers using the feature, a business is not going to spend the time investing in it.

Your early adopters are going to be personal blogs and tech-savvy businesses first who need to adopt every piece of new marketing technology in its infancy because its niche customers are primarily early adopters already. —Matt Rygelski

I’m just starting to experiment with Google+ and like it so far. Of course, one reason I like it is that it’s still in the “early adopter, just us geeks here” phase. The main reason I like it is that it’s NOT FACEBOOK, and I detest Facebook.

If you’re not a geek, wait a bit until Google has worked out some of the kinks. If you are a geek and want to help with the beta testing, come on in.

Oh, and if you are a company or brand, your employees can join, but Google hasn’t finished setting up its brand pages yet, so you should wait.

It’s nice to be able to organize connections. The group video feature is a little buggy yet, but it’s free, whereas someone has to pay for Skype’s group video. The ability to decide which of your circles a chat post goes to is nice. And chat in as many characters as you want is also nice.

As with Twitter, I suspect it will take some time before people discover all the things they can use it for–the uses that the creators never imagined. There will always be people who have to wait until those uses appear to use a tool. And people for whom a tool is just not the right tool, because it doesn’t help them accomplish their goals. If you aren’t someone who likes playing with new tools for fun and can’t see a business application yet, then wait until you DO see a practical use. — Sallie Goetsch

There is very little there TBH…I got invited, signed up and 5 mins later had seen the whole thing and left.

That’s not to say it isn’t going to be good….just way to early to tell yet. If you haven’t seen it, you are not missing anything i assure you. — Scott Linklater

I’ve been using it for a couple of weeks and overall it’s very good, but I’d caution businesses or ‘collecetive entities’ in general from doing too much on the platform just yet. Google has said that branded pages will be available soon, and has taken steps to remove some early branded accounts that have sprung up. I’d reccomend signing up for personal use and exploring, possibly publishing some content there and beginning to build contacts, but I wouldn’t throw too much investment at it just yet – the platform will eveolve as more gmail users get involved, and it’s nly then that the usage norms will start to appear and make it a truly valuable channel. I wrote an article on Econsultancy recently about this, if you’re interested, I’ve added a link below.http://ecly.co/q5ErI9 — Matt Owen

Glad you asked this question, because I’m curious why I should blithely hand over even more personal information to Google. That Google is facing a major FTC investigation indicates a wait and see attitude to me. Overall, I think they’ve devolved from search engine to omniscience. — Elektrish Media

People who are involved in Marketing, Promotion, Social Media, Advertising, and Technology related fields should jump onto Google + immediately in order to establish their credibility in speaking about it, and other current trends, and also to become “experts” before anyone else.

This of course adds value to them as individuals and companies, and also means that they will be in a position to influence others about this product/technology.

Who should wait? Everyone else. There is no business or monetary value to being involved with Google+ yet for anyone who isn’t in the industries I stated above. They can wait to get involved with this.– Roberto Blake

I’m currently using Google+, but I don’t think it really compares to other social networking platforms (at least not yet). I think it will be much more innovative when a Google+ app is available for the iPhone or Blackberry. Right now I’m really only associating with business contacts, friends, and blogger connections. Some of it seems to be a bit of a spam; lots of Asian dialect and inappropriate pictures. I’m not too sold on the idea of switching over to it and haven’t used any of the functions yet (group chat/video), but I think once it’s available via mobile devices it might just be a game changer! — Molly Dixon

I think Google+ is worth watching because Google seems to have finally moved away from knee-jerk efforts at “social” to thinking through how “social” might work within the context of Google’s core business and the Google-sphere.

While it is far too early to tell how successful Google+ will be (or which elements will really take off), I like the concept of Circles, the serendipity of Sparks, and the potential of the Hangouts. Plus the fact that (hopefully shortly) there will be integration with Google Reader. — Daria Steigman

Seems “clear” to me: If you’re an SM geek and/or techie early adopter, then you need to be there, i.e. Google+

I’m using Google+ quite a lot now, although at the moment I’m not totally sure why or what I get out of it! Something to persevere with though I think, I do notice more and more customers and contacts signing up.

Google is the search engine out there and important for every internet business so i think one should try to use every possible angle to rank high. Problem with google + is, that it does not have a big active user mass, probably the most accounts are from marketers.

Google+ has a lot of features which can be helpful for marketers. This is helpful to widen up the connections and in stretching out the angles for customers. However the number of users is less than the users of Facabook and people may find much easy access to market as they use Facebook.

Google plus can has a lot of useful features and has the advantage for marketers. This may not have the same number of users like Fb or Twitter but you could work to invite friend or colleagues to use this and make connections.

I use it just to promote the business. It’s good for SEO as it comes for google social platform but that’s about it. There is not such interaction on FB (even if I have 3 times +1 than likes on FB) so it’s pretty quiet, not a lot to do on it…Maybe later, in a couple of years, it will become better as more and more people join, but for now, that’s about it from my point of view…

Google+ is definitely a good place to promote your business online, or do some other stuff as well. Hangout is the best and unique (yet) thing about Google+. I really hope, some more people start using it now.

I´m total newbie to whole social media thing. I have to say that I have underestimate power of social signals when it comes to promoting your content on the web. But now I share my posts on google plus, facebook, twitter and pinterest as well.

I have a personal account on Google+ however I just created one for my companies as I could really see the value of it based on articles like these that are enumerating how business owners can benefit from it. It won’t really take that much time to create one so I highly suggest everyone to do the same.

Feb 6, 20134:48 am

#17 christina :

Nice tips shari.Really nice post..I like it and your post is very helpful for new blogger

I really think that Google+ is going to continue to influence SEO moving forward. With Google being the number one Search Engine, businesses and service providers just can’t ignore their social media site.

I think Google+ is a great place to promote your business even though I’m not using it. But Google+ is owned by Google so obviously it has the advantages to help SEO users to get their business rankings.

Google+ for business has continued to be a growth market for businesses and for search engine optimization. Google+ has definitely succeeded where their previous attempts at harnessing social media have failed. Remember Google Buzz or Google Wave? Google Plus reached 100 million users faster than Facebook (which took what, four years?) and Twitter it took even longer to eclipse 100 million. Google may have finally created the social network they were hoping for.

I find it pretty good for SEO. Since I have a fair amount of subscribers on my YouTube channel where I mainly promote my business. My YouTube, Google+ and website are all linked through authorship. It works well for me overall.

The social media marketing experts are considering G+ as the top social media for future which will have great values for your business to increase the scope of its customers and profit. That’s why its time to get registered on G+ and update your customers and millions of people whats going on in your industry. By the way its pretty good to read your post about Google+ benefits for business and providing a solid reason to use it.

Thanks for the insight. I finally came around and created a Google+ account and found that it has increased my connections and buzz around my business. I think everyone should consider getting on to it (even those who don’t use Facebook).

Social media has become one of the important platform for online marketing. Google+ has become on of the best social networking sites.

Exceptionally pleasant review about Google+ I truly like that you have given others a chance to express their ideas. I only began with Google+. Not certain what to consider it yet be that as it may, we’ll see. I acknowledge articles like this to better comprehend the pros and cons. I figure that is exactly how things go in web promoting. I’ll anticipate seeing where Google+ will go.

Great post i hope this post would help many people especially beginners .